tag:theconversation.com,2011:/columns/rosie-findlay-106374Material Visions – The Conversation2014-11-03T23:40:47Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/335842014-11-03T23:40:47Z2014-11-03T23:40:47ZCuriosities and fragments<figure class="align-center ">
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<span class="caption">This is the kind of thing I saw everywhere around me all week. Life as an academic certainly has its perks … This is a detail of the courtyard of Exeter College.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rosie Findlay</span></span>
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<p>I recently went to heaven, aka attended a week-long conference in Oxford devoted entirely to fashion theory. I presented a paper on catwalk shows, which you’ve heard me bang on about before <a href="https://theconversation.com/setting-the-fashionable-scene-25366">here</a> (and <a href="https://theconversation.com/strateas-carlucci-at-mbfwa-2014-25370">here</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/gail-sorronda-at-mbfwa-2014-25383">here</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/maticevski-at-mbfwa-2014-25395">here</a>… and also <a href="https://theconversation.com/alice-mccall-at-mbfwa-2014-25484">here</a>) and then got to listen to a range of papers on everything from female fashion in the Ottoman Empire to the significance of Holly Golightly’s little black dress to the difficulty and importance of protecting fashion design under intellectual property legislation.</p>
<p>Looking back over my notes, I’m struck by what I heard, often recorded in brief snatches of sentences. Enough to give a taste or a prompt to remember, so that I know to go back and mull over it later. Isn’t that often how it goes? A sentence will strike us, a single thought that we linger on, that weaves into our other thoughts, perhaps turning them in a slightly new direction. So in the spirit of provoking vague, drifting thoughts, I here present to you some of the things I learnt, brief snippets drawn from the meticulously researched, thought-provoking work we sat in for the week.</p>
<p>Did you know that high heels used to be unisex? And that the distinction between a shoe being appropriate or inappropriate (or between being “courtly” or “courtesan”) was a matter of mere inches? </p>
<p>On the subject of footwear, it wasn’t until 17th century that all classes of people in Japan wore shoes: prior to that, the privilege was reserved exclusively for the upper classes. The upper classes wouldn’t wear leather shoes, though — they were for the lower classes, as wearing an animal was considered base. (A funny counterpoint to the place of leather goods in our society, often an expensive status object — think of hand-turned Italian leather shoes, for example, or houses like Hermès and Louis Vuitton, whose respective histories are rooted in bespoke leather goods.)</p>
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<span class="caption">An example of an advertisement for a male belt.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marian Willemsz/Pinterest</span></span>
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<p>Corsets also used to be commonly worn by both sexes, and as recently as the early 20th century! Although corsets for men were advertised as “belts”, even though the purpose of wearing them was similar for both sexes: to trim the line of the waist.</p>
<p>It was fascinating to learn about the bizarre pathological behaviours recorded as happening in French department stores after their introduction in the late 19th century. All of them are very Baudelairean and fetish-y: men cutting up the clothes of unsuspecting female shoppers, women compulsively stealing from the stores, men rubbing up against women. </p>
<p>During the same period, across the Atlantic Ocean, 5 million American birds were being killed each year so that their feathers could be used as adornment. And talking of wings, in the early days of her acting career, Lillie Langtry couldn’t afford expensive clothes and jewels, so she decorated herself with butterflies instead.</p>
<p>I loved this quote from Jess Berry, speaking about food and fashion in the fashion photograph: “women are there to feed the appetite, not to have any of their own”. In fashion as in the nude in Western art.</p>
<p>And finally, something to leave you mulling over. On textures and textiles: “touch helps to complete thought”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/33584/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
I recently went to heaven, aka attended a week-long conference in Oxford devoted entirely to fashion theory. I presented a paper on catwalk shows, which you’ve heard me bang on about before here (and here…Rosie Findlay, Teaching Fellow, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/326752014-10-08T03:49:30Z2014-10-08T03:49:30ZDo you know how your clothes were made?<figure class="align-center zoomable">
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<span class="caption">Lamia Begum cries holding on to a barbwire fence in front of Rana Plaza building, two months after the building collapse at Savar, Bangladesh in June 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/ Abit Abdullah</span></span>
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<p>One moment: one recent Saturday afternoon, I was sitting on the top deck of a red London bus, watching a sea of shoppers flood over Oxford Circus. The cream of the British high street have their flagship stores there, Primark and Topshop, as well as international labels that Australian shoppers can’t get enough of, H&amp;M, Zara, Uniqlo. Down Regent Street, across Oxford Street, all I could see was a slowly moving mass of people, all carrying shopping bags.</p>
<p>Another moment: whilst on that same trip, I wore a pair of Adidas sneakers. They’re black and grey, with pink and yellow accents on the toe, between the upper and sole, and they often elicit admiring comments from other people. When I was looking for a pair of sneakers earlier this year, I deliberately didn’t consider buying Nike shoes because of my disappointment at <a href="http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/cambodia-walmart-nike-bashed-silence-over-garment-workers-killings-1431677">their failure to intercede on behalf of the Cambodian garment workers employed by their suppliers, who were killed by police this year for demonstrating for higher wages</a>. </p>
<p>Little did I then know that Adidas also have a long track record of <a href="https://www.oxfam.org.au/explore/workers-rights/adidas/talking-with-adidas/">failing to pressure suppliers into creating safe working environments and implementing fair wages for the employees of the factories that make their product</a>.</p>
<p>What other companies outsource their production to poorly regulated factories in Asian countries such as India, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Indonesia? New Balance, GAP, Levi’s, Benetton, Walmart, Primark, and Australian labels Peter Alexander and Just Jeans, among others. </p>
<p>By “poorly regulated”, I mean garment workers being compelled to work in buildings that have not passed fire safety inspections or that have had additional floors added that make them structurally unsound. I mean garment workers working unpaid overtime, being paid a minimum wage which is below a <a href="http://www.labourbehindthelabel.org/campaigns/item/1172-what-is-a-living-wage">living wage</a>, being exposed to dangerous fibres and chemicals without any workplace safety measures in place, and facing the loss of their job or imprisonment if they join a union or advocate for better conditions and pay.</p>
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<span class="caption">Hundreds of people line up in front of Australia’s first Zara store which opened in Sydney in 2011.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ Tracey Nearmy</span></span>
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<p>We live in a culture that tells us that who we are is inextricably bound with what we consume. Our taste in music, where we dine, even what we <em>don’t</em> eat, and our personal style are all indicative of our identity, and communicate to others the kind of person we feel ourselves to be. </p>
<p>Implicit in this is value: looking good when spending less means you are a smart shopper. Wearing what is new (remember <a href="http://www.news.com.au/finance/zara-fever-never-seen-anything-like-it/story-e6frfm1i-1226043948923">the lengthy queues outside Zara’s Pitt St store in Sydney</a> when it opened?) or what is cool marks you out as someone who has access to the best, to the zeitgeist. So I wonder what it means to wear clothes by a multinational company whose net worth was US$22.76 billion as of May this year whose suppliers pay their employees below a living wage? For me and my “cool” Adidas sneakers, it meant being clueless about the human hands that made the shoes on my feet.</p>
<p>If we are going to participate in a culture of consumption, the least we can do is be aware about where our clothes were made, and under what conditions. Even better than that would be action: not a boycott of the companies that contract their production to suppliers, but agitation for fair pay and proper conditions for the garment workers who work for them. </p>
<p>Boycotting could lead to the closure of factories and the removal of essential industry from countries for whom export is economically fundamental (the garment industry in Bangladesh, for example, employs four million people and provides nearly 80% of the country’s exports). </p>
<p>But what if we, the customers of these companies, wrote to them, demanding accountability and transparency in their production processes? We could start in Australia by putting pressure on Best and Less and the ironically named Just Group (which owns labels such as Portmans, Peter Alexander, Dotti, Jay Jays, Jacqui E, Just Jeans and Smiggle) who <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-24/australian-clothing-retailers-yet-to-sign-factory-safety-accord/5408028">have not yet signed the legally enforceable Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh</a>. (You can see the list of the official signatories <a href="http://bangladeshaccord.org/signatories/">here</a>)</p>
<p>What if we threw our support behind transformative measures such as the implementation of the <a href="http://www.cleanclothes.org/livingwage/calculating-a-living-wage">Asian Floor Wage</a> that would ensure fair pay for garment workers across Asia, reducing the danger of companies moving production to somewhere cheaper within the region if wages are raised?</p>
<p>What if when we looked at shops, we looked past the promise of “better”, and “transformed”, and “new” and thought of Leap, a Cambodian garment worker <a href="http://www.womeninclothes.com/">who said</a>:</p>
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<p>I used to think that if I could have one quality and beautiful bra like I make, I would be really happy and I would be very beautiful. But it’s impossible. These bras are for export, and the price of one of the bras I make is almost equal to my salary. While working, I hold the bra up in front of my face, then I ask myself who is the woman who will wear the bra I am sewing. I also wonder how the women in these countries are so rich and lucky to wear these expensive bras while the person who makes that bra just wears a very cheap one bought from the pile of clothes on the ground under the umbrella.</p>
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<p>What if instead of feeling entitled to cheap clothes, we, with our considerable buying power, championed the rights of workers like Reba Sikder, who worked at the Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh? </p>
<p>Reba, one of the survivors of that disaster which killed over 1,100 people and injured 2,500 more, who, alongside her colleagues, was ordered into the factory because an international buyer was putting pressure on management to receive their shipment even though significant cracks had appeared in the building on the previous day. </p>
<p>Reba, who, when she was trapped in the collapsed factory, “saw another thirty workers trapped, many of them dead, injured, and everyone is screaming … and I saw one of my coworkers drinking her own blood from her injured area, because she was so thirsty and there is nothing she can get”, and who has still not received any compensation for her injury.</p>
<p>If we know about this suffering, if we know about this terrible inequality, and we could say something, and we don’t, what does that say about us?
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<p><em>Want to find out more? Here are some useful places to start:
<a href="http://www.labourbehindthelabel.org/">Labour Behind the Label</a>;
<a href="https://www.oxfam.org.au/explore/workers-rights/">Oxfam on worker’s rights</a>;
<a href="http://wiego.org/informal-economy/occupational-groups/garment-workers">Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) on garment workers</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32675/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
One moment: one recent Saturday afternoon, I was sitting on the top deck of a red London bus, watching a sea of shoppers flood over Oxford Circus. The cream of the British high street have their flagship…Rosie Findlay, Teaching Fellow, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/313472014-09-05T04:55:04Z2014-09-05T04:55:04ZReflection misperception, or how I'm learning to stop worrying and embrace boyfriend jeans<figure class="align-right zoomable">
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<span class="caption">Feeling comfortable in our own skin when it comes to clothes is more complicated than just “being yourself”.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Maria Morri</span></span>
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<p>Here’s a phrase that strikes terror into my heart: boyfriend jeans. I came of age in the era of the skinny jean, which started out like a low-slung pair of denim stovepipes and ended up, in recent years, as “jeggings” (also known as denim spray-painted onto the wearer’s legs). So perhaps it’s not surprising that my initial denim “comfort zone” is slim and fitted from hip to ankle.* </p>
<p>Of course, we all know the denim market exploded from the moment it became a <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2007-01-22/riding-hip-jeans-into-new-luxury-marketsbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice">luxury item</a> in the late 90s and early noughties, with local labels such as Ksubi and sass+bide skyrocketing into the Australian market on the back of their custom denim, and international labels selling pairs for as much as AU$800. </p>
<p>It is little wonder, then, that multiple styles have proliferated, with many different cuts being championed as the “new essential” by fashion magazines at various points: right now, it is flared jeans (fashion is very much having a 70s moment), taking the baton passed forward from Levis 501s, the “hot” jeans of last summer. But always hanging around like a louche, cool friend is the boyfriend jean: a low-slung cut with wide, cropped legs. </p>
<p>This is a style that looks great on women with slim hips and long legs, making it very desirable for yours truly when spotted on other people with these characteristics. Unfortunately, being decidedly more of an hourglass shape, I would periodically try them on throughout my late teens and early 20s, go scarlet with mortification upon catching sight of myself in the mirror, and get them off and away from me as fast as humanly possible.</p>
<p>The other day, the shop where I casually work received a shipment of new jeans. In the interests of “getting to know the fit in order to help customers” (did I mention I also need new jeans?), I tried the three styles on, including a pair of boyfriend jeans, which were the style I had liked the best on the hanger. My shape has changed quite a bit in the ten or so years since I last gave boyfriend jeans a red-hot go, so I thought that now might be the time to embrace them. I don’t look the same now as I did then, so that makes sense, right? </p>
<p>Wrong.</p>
<p>I stepped in front of the mirror … horror. All I could see were my huge thighs, my stumpy shins: I looked exactly the same in them as I had before. I turned to my colleague and said something to the effect of “don’t these look <em>awful</em>?” but she looked at me in surprise. She thought I looked cool. But the <em>thighs</em>, just <em>look at them</em>! </p>
<p>She didn’t know what I was talking about. (Perhaps worth mentioning here that she’s also a close friend, and we are brutally honest with each other if something we’ve tried on is not working, so she would have confirmed if they were unflattering.)</p>
<p>I’ve written before about women’s misconceptions when it comes to their own bodies, something I have observed on the shopfloor and which was discussed in a pair of fascinating papers on women, ageing and dress presented at a <a href="http://fashademic.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/recap-on-fashion-international-5-oxford.html">conference I attended last year</a>. </p>
<p>The jist was that as they age, women tend to dress to hide the “flaws” of their bodies, and blaming/ shaming their own corporeal selves for “failing” if they do not fit into something, rather than blaming the cut of the garment. </p>
<p>Likewise, when I would try on boyfriend jeans, what I would see in the mirror confirmed my own shame at my “wrong” body: my thighs didn’t have a “gap” (they still don’t, but I don’t think that’s how I’m “supposed” to look any more), they weren’t toned, they weren’t long enough. </p>
<p>To wear those jeans would be to admit that this was the reality, so instead I would reach for black opaque tights (slimming) worn under full skirts (hiding) to feel better. “More myself” is how I described it, but that was a euphemism for “a me I can accept”.</p>
<p>How I see myself now has changed, but when I put those jeans on last weekend, I was my 19-year-old self again. It was like nothing had changed. And in that moment I understood the feelings of customers who hide their necks or won’t bare their arms, even if a sleeveless top looks fantastic on them. In that moment, they’re not seeing their actual reflection, but their prior perception of self: how they are supposed to look, what they will and will not allow themselves to wear (this often takes shape in language of “can” and “can’t”: “I can’t wear that with these arms”). </p>
<p>Incredible that we don’t see how we actually look, that this exaggerated self haunts us from the glass. I’ve always thought people should dress in whatever manner they feel most themself, most comfortable. But if we’re cutting ourselves off unnecessarily from things that we might otherwise want to wear, because of an apparition in the mirror, maybe it’s worth giving those jeans another go.</p>
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<li>Perhaps appropriately, considering my last column was about fashion words, the word “jeggings” (I’m sorry to have to use it twice when we all wish it didn’t even exist at all) gives me the horrors. There’s something uncomfortably over-familiar about it, something daggy and naff. But then, these connotations probably suit the garment, which has always looked incredibly ungainly to me, regardless of who is wearing them. Surely better to have bare legs, or opaque tights under an enormous jumper, <em>a la</em> Edie Sedgwick, than to wear something that doesn’t know what it is? And here endeth the message.</li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31347/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Here’s a phrase that strikes terror into my heart: boyfriend jeans. I came of age in the era of the skinny jean, which started out like a low-slung pair of denim stovepipes and ended up, in recent years…Rosie Findlay, Teaching Fellow, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/297322014-07-28T00:33:29Z2014-07-28T00:33:29ZOn the delight of fashion words<figure class="align-center ">
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<span class="caption">Jean Shrimpton in a cloud of fabric. Original photograph by Richard Avedon, dress by Pierre Cardin, 1970.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">B, Flickr</span></span>
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<p>While sometimes I teem with opinions jostling to be exercised over the page, at other times I’m drawn into meditation, where my engagement with the happenings, and the actual materiality, of fashion loosens its grip. In these times, I ponder. I drift. And lately, these limitless flights have led me to savour the particular and peculiar sensuality of the words we accord to fashion.</p>
<p>Fashion has a lexicon unto itself, peopled with specific words that denote fabrics, garment styles or accoutrements. These words were often my first introduction to such fineries, as I am sure is common for many readers, especially readers who, like myself, were drawn to historical novels full of descriptions of period dress. Yet what a shock it sometimes was to encounter the real fabric, far from how I had imagined it! I was so disappointed to discover how rough tulle is, feeling it for the first time, and how far that scratchy, synthetic stuff was from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Green_Gables">Anne Shirley</a>‘s dreamy imaginings (and mine) of grown-up dresses with “clouds of tulle”. </p>
<p><em>Crepe de chine</em> always conjured visions of very elderly Victorian women in funereal black, whereas organdie was a constant imaginative stumbling-block: was it the same as organza? Whether the sentence contained “organdie” or “organza”, my mind would immediately conjure the idea of both, as I tried to picture what was being described. (I would invariably decide to just imagine it as silk and hastily move on.)</p>
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<span class="caption">Frankly, my dear, I love your sleeves. Clark Gable as Rhett Butler and Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With The Wind.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>And what person intrigued by fashion could fail to be seduced by Margaret Mitchell’s description of Scarlett O'Hara getting dressed for the barbeque at Twelve Oaks in Chapter Five of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_with_the_Wind">Gone With The Wind</a>? She writes, </p>
<p>“_Since eight o’clock [Scarlett] had been trying on and rejecting dresses, and now she stood dejected and irritable in lace pantalets, linen corset cover and three billowing lace and linen petticoats. Discarded garments lay about her on the floor, the bed, the chairs, in bright heaps of colour and straying ribbons.
The rose organdie with long pink sash was becoming, but she had worn it last summer when Melanie visited Twelve Oaks and she’d be sure to remember it. And might be catty enough to mention it. </p>
<p>The black bombazine, with its puffed sleeves and princess lace collar, set off her white skin superbly, but it did make her look a trifle elderly … It would never do to appear sedate and elderly before Melanie’s sweet youthfulness … The green plaid taffeta, frothing with flounces and each flounce edged in green velvet ribbon, was most becoming, in fact her favourite dress, for it darkened her eyes to emerald. But there was unmistakeably a grease spot on the front of the basque. Of course, her brooch could be pinned over the spot, but perhaps Melanie had sharp eyes._”</p>
<p>Woven into the description of the dresses is Scarlett’s prior experience of having worn them as well as her anticipation of wearing them again (and in the face of her rival, Melanie). We can almost see them, scattered and colourful, and vibrant as Scarlett’s passionate youth. </p>
<p>Linen petticoats, black bombazine, a brooch at the basque: there is something mildly intoxicating about their cadence. In the reading, there is a brief connection between the sensuality of wearing and the sensuality of language, a delicate membrane between the two that is momentarily felt and then passed over.</p>
<p>And so I invite you to sink into reverie, to savour the following words like sweets lolled on the tongue. For me, they offer an invitation to dream. They can assume character, or a sensation - I wonder if it is the same for you?</p>
<p>Velvet, and its leggy teenaged sister velveteen. Silk, satin, sateen, bombazine. Tartan, practical, braced and standing tall. Muslin, cambric, taffeta, lace. Poplin. Brocade, suede, cashmere. Energetic, ready-for-anything nylon. Polyester. Lamé, lurex, voile. As my friend <a href="https://twitter.com/diana_liwen">Diana</a> once remarked, “the language of textiles is as orgiastic as the language of food”.</p>
<p>Evocative as fabrics are, consider also the satisfaction of contemplating the everyday words we have for clothing. How the word “buckle” immediately conjures not only the thing itself but also the object’s useful function. The restriction of the word “corset”, the first half of the word opening the mouth only to be drawn back against the teeth by the final, limiting “t”. The French finesse of the words “brassiere” and “lingerie”, compared to the cheekiness of “knickers”, the faded, small “undies”, and the prim-lipped “unmentionables”.</p>
<p>They have a poetry unto themselves, these words, their evocative possibilities often skimmed over in favour of their functionality - “what is this made of? Is it dry-clean only?” But how delightful to sink into the reverie their names invite, and to float away for a while on the romance of a word like “peau de soie”.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/29732/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
While sometimes I teem with opinions jostling to be exercised over the page, at other times I’m drawn into meditation, where my engagement with the happenings, and the actual materiality, of fashion loosens…Rosie Findlay, Teaching Fellow and PhD Candidate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/279762014-06-19T01:15:52Z2014-06-19T01:15:52ZGetting the hang of academic dress<figure class="align-center zoomable">
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">mystuart</span></span>
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<p>I recently had the opportunity to join the academic processional at my friend’s graduation. What was funny about this was that although I’m a member of staff, my own PhD is still under examination, so I had the surreal experience of welcoming the PhD graduates “into the academy”… despite not yet being in the academy myself. </p>
<p>Standing in the anteroom with the other academics “robing up”, I realised something: a number of us (myself included) had uncertainties about how to properly wear the academicals, or academic dress. You have billowy robes with four arm slits (two options which each designate the award of a different degree), a hood that exerts a stranglehold each time you stand up if not properly held in place, and a hat with no discernible front and back. And on which side is the tassel on the trencher supposed to hang? It’s a sartorial minefield.</p>
<p>In fact, I actually realised half way through the ceremony that I had my arms through the wrong slits in the sleeves. And this is <em>after</em> I consulted a handful of colleagues on the matter. And that’s the thing about academic robes: they are so distinctive, but also kind of mystifying. How are they supposed to be worn? Are the colours of the hoods (signifying what degree has been earned) universal? And from where did they originate?</p>
<p>Academic dress dates back to the earliest universities, established in medieval Europe from the 11th century. At this time, robes were worn on a daily basis. <a href="http://www.herffjones.com/regaliahistory">One theory holds</a> that as the earliest universities did not have their own buildings, studies were conducted in nearby cathedrals, so scholars (often clerics or aspiring clerics) would wear robes and hoods to keep warm whilst they studied. </p>
<p>Such apparel has been a constant in higher education since that time, although variations have been incorporated throughout time to distinguish among the different degrees earned by a scholar.</p>
<p>Interestingly, these variations have not been universalised, although academic wear in general is still largely influenced by the custom at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Although academic dress usually is comprised of robes, a hood, and some manner of hat (usually a trencher, a bonnet or a tam), the colours worn on the hood signify the award of different degrees, university to university. Likewise, what kind of hat doctoral graduates wear, or even the base colour of the robes vary. </p>
<p>In our procession last Friday, most academics wore the robes unique to the institutions from which they graduated. Cue wonderful robes of bright crimson or blue (instead of plain old black), squashy velvet tams with gold piping, gold armbands encircling the upper arm, and one academic even wore a soft Knox bonnet on a slant, like a <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Phrygian+cap&amp;tbm=isch&amp;tbo=u&amp;source=univ&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=pDSiU_nFH4qckQXL6YC4BA&amp;ved=0CDUQsAQ&amp;biw=1169&amp;bih=679#q=phrygian%20cap%20french%20revolution&amp;revid=1476836221&amp;tbm=isch&amp;imgdii=_">Phrygian cap</a> but cooler. </p>
<p>It made me wish we had fancier doctoral garb at the University of Sydney – our graduates wear black robes with a crimson hood and a trencher. Classic, sure, but as my friend Chris observed, doctoral grads from some universities get to wear top hats. I’m just saying.</p>
<p>As for the rest of the look, it is correct to wear formal attire underneath your robes. Most people will know this already, graduation ceremonies being formal affairs, but did you know that some universities regulate what is to be worn, and that it is called “<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subfusc#Subfusc">subfusc</a>”? </p>
<p>It basically involves a lot of black and white, and a tie for both sexes. The usefulness of a tie in this ensemble is that the knot holds your hood in place if you tuck the tie’s lengths over the hood’s collarbone strap. If you don’t want to wear a tie, I advise using a couple of safety pins to discreetly attach the underside of the hood to your robes to avoid the aforementioned “hood half-nelson” when you stand to collect your degree.</p>
<p>What I especially like about these speciality garments is all the different names given to them. The trencher, for example: it’s also called a square cap, a mortarboard, an Oxford cap, a corner cap, or just a square. How typical of academics not to agree on what to call something! </p>
<p>I tend to wonder if calling it a “trencher” came from the resemblance of the cap’s flat, square crown to trenchers, old-fashioned platters for food. “Mortarboard” was apparently given because the hat looks like a plasterer’s hawk which holds mortar used to lay bricks. </p>
<p>Being thus armed, I will now be prepared for my own graduation later this year (all things going to plan): arms through the second set of slits, and tassel on the right to be turned to the left once I have the degree in hand. And then I might look at enrolling in a second PhD at Victoria University of Wellington to get in line for one of those cool Knox bonnets … </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
I recently had the opportunity to join the academic processional at my friend’s graduation. What was funny about this was that although I’m a member of staff, my own PhD is still under examination, so…Rosie Findlay, Teaching Fellow and PhD Candidate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/276902014-06-06T04:21:04Z2014-06-06T04:21:04ZWhy are the Australian Commonwealth Games uniforms so bad?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/54371/original/wfb4ggpg-1405914989.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">original</span> </figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center zoomable">
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<span class="caption">Australian athletes wear the Australian Commonwealth Games Athletes’ uniform for the Glasgow Commonwealth Games during a launch event in Melbourne on Wednesday this week.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ David Crosling</span></span>
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<p>It’s unanimous: we think that the uniforms designed for the Australian Commonwealth Games team are ugly. More than 15,000 people polled by <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/sydney-confidential/yes-its-ugly-public-slams-aussie-commonwealth-games-uniform/story-fni0cvc9-1226944307542">the Daily Telegraph said so</a>, <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/aussie-commonwealth-games-team-to-take-on-glasgow-in-nanna-jumpers/story-e6frg7mf-1226943013020">The Australian</a> likened the official knitwear to “nanna jumpers”, and Elle Australia’s deputy editor <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/sport/dreadful-australian-commonwealth-games-uniforms-will-challenge-athletes-20140604-39jer.html">Damien Woolnough</a> remarked that the uniforms serve as an example of “why Olympians used to perform naked”.</p>
<p>Well … they’re not great. As I often write on my students’ work, I can see what the designers, Australian Defence Apparel, were trying to do, but the work didn’t quite get there.</p>
<p>To start with, they had to use the national colours of Australia, green and gold, which are not exactly the most complementary of hues. To make it worse, somehow the colour that designers of such uniforms often reach for to balance this vibrant clash is grey. Think back to the Australian team’s Commonwealth Games uniforms from 2010, in which jade green and butter-yellow gold were matched back with shiny pewter suits. Wrongtown. </p>
<p>This year, the pale ghost-gum shade of the pants works well with the dark green of the uniform, but is a horror next to the lemon. And I can’t help but think that an athlete wearing both top and pants in that grey would look like an escaped extra from the set of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50451/original/yyphx7jg-1402027223.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/50451/original/yyphx7jg-1402027223.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=237&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">Athlete Jeff Riseley wears the Australian Commonwealth Games Athletes’ uniform for the Glasgow Commonwealth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ David Crosling</span></span>
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<p>In an effort to make the uniforms contemporary and fashionable, the designers incorporated a homespun, grassroots feel by way of making Australian stalwart Dunlop Volleys the official shoes, and producing chunky knitted jumpers and scarves topped off with over-sized patches emblazoned with the coat of arms. </p>
<p>What works against this is the unfortunate quasi-business aesthetic that persists in the design of official sports uniforms. It’s as if someone decided years ago that off-duty athletes should be dressed like businesspeople who are trying to jazz up their work wardrobes. So we see the business-wear basics – blazer, trousers, overcoat – tricked out with unnecessary details that take away from the sleek competence such items are supposed to convey. Think of this year’s lemon-yellow piping on the outerwear jackets, and those <em>enormous</em> lapels, or the over-sized pockets of the 2010 uniforms. They would be quite useful if you wanted to carry a discus on each hip but otherwise … </p>
<p>What is so bizarre about all of this is that it should have been so easy. Activewear, a catch-all term for sports and leisurewear designed for athletic activity, is enjoying an unprecedented popularity in fashion. Website <a href="http://www.businessoffashion.com/2014/06/is-activewear-the-new-denim-lucas-hugh-lululemon-athleta.html">Business of Fashion</a> has likened its influence and development as a prestige market to the surge in designer denim in the 2000s. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/fashion/chanel-dior-send-couture-sneakers-runway-article-1.1590800">Trainers were shown by Chanel and Dior</a> at the recent Haute Couture shows in Paris, and items such as bodysuits, yoga pants and leggings have long since crossed over from the terrain of morning workout to everyday wardrobe. </p>
<p>It would have been much more exciting to see the designers of these uniforms apply the principles of sleek functionality, as well as high-performance fabrics, to their work, developing well-cut, handsome clothes that mirror the lifestyle and occupation of the athletes who will wear them. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27690/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
It’s unanimous: we think that the uniforms designed for the Australian Commonwealth Games team are ugly. More than 15,000 people polled by the Daily Telegraph said so, The Australian likened the official…Rosie Findlay, Teaching Fellow and PhD Candidate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/254842014-04-13T12:10:38Z2014-04-13T12:10:38ZAlice McCall at MBFWA 2014<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/46087/original/vf5ry2hp-1397109989.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">alice mccall of</span> </figcaption></figure><p><em>This week Rosie Findlay is writing her column from the <a href="http://australia.mbfashionweek.com/">Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia (MBFWA)</a> describing in detail the experience of the live event.</em></p>
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<span class="caption">Some of the looks as worn by models in Alice McCall’s show, “In My Dreams We Were Flying”, at MBFWA on Thursday.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jamie Davidson</span></span>
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<p>The invite to this show that I received in the post a couple of weeks ago was a silver Ziploc bag filled with multicoloured confetti. That was my first clue.</p>
<p>Fast-forward to last Thursday morning and I am standing in Bay 25, one of the former workshops for repairing trains when Carriageworks was still Eveleigh Rail Yard. There are still steel train-tracks embedded in the concrete floor. It is a vast industrial space with vaulted roof arching over parallel lines of white wooden chairs facing the “runway”. </p>
<p>Over the middle of the room hangs a set piece, hanging from a lighting rig on delicate wires: a cluster of porcelain casts of surreal objects hanging a foot from the floor. I spy a disembodied hand suspended beside a femur, an enormous clamshell with a pearl in its mouth, and miniature planets orbiting a porcelain crystal geode. </p>
<p>Playing over the sound system is Tomaso Albinoni’s tragic Adagio in G Minor for Strings and Organ, which never fails to remind me of the film <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0Ankn-AzC4">Gallipoli</a>. I don’t know if this is the association the production design team were going for, because the accompanying sound effects overlaying it give rise to much different connotations. The thwacking of a helicopter blade makes me think of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axSlukcCIlM">Vietnam War</a>; the caw of a crow, a Victorian Gothic novel; and, most puzzling, except perhaps as a red herring in this aural landscape, the cheerful chirping of birds. </p>
<p>Each seat bears a transparent plastic sheet printed with a few paragraphs outlining the influences of the collection: dreams and dreamy femininity lie its heart, epitomised by the two young heroines named as references: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLkxV_gyYbI">Lux Lisbon</a> and <a href="http://www.ask.com/wiki/Wendy_Darling?o=2802&amp;qsrc=999&amp;ad=doubleDown&amp;an=apn&amp;ap=ask.com">Wendy Darling</a>. </p>
<p>Morning light streams in through the enormous, train-carriage-shaped doors flanking the space. The music fades. Silence. </p>
<p>A heartbeat echoes, growing louder, as if we are contained within the same ribcage, rattling into the machinic sound of a steam pump, and on come the spotlights, warm yellow lights trained on the runway.</p>
<p>The models walk out, one by one, almost smiling. The first looks are all fresh white pinafore minidresses, which gradually bleed into pale seafoam green playsuits, and on through lemon yellow, chewing-gum pink, and powder blue. This story is sweet with scalloped hems, narrow straps criss-crossing over bare backs, and the designer’s signature cotton lace inserts. </p>
<p>The models’ hair is straightened but kind of mussed, as if they’ve been lolling around in a bedroom listening to rock n'roll records with Lux. Their eyes shimmer with palely iridescent eyeshadow and some carry fantastic and improbable bags, like a miniaudière shaped like a pink glittery rocketship.</p>
<p>The music the girls walk to is stretched out, trippy, and I scribble down the names <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh1-T1HqEJY">Tame Impala</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhCR9pOXdqc">Deerhunter</a> although I’m not really sure if it’s by either of these bands at all. What I do know is that the beat is so heavy I can feel it reordering the rhythm of my heartbeat. </p>
<p>The dreamy vibe of the first story of the collection is given a visual punch as glittery garments start walking out: one pair of hot pink glitter short shorts are particularly eye-catching. And then the collection turns in its sleep towards dreams of the future, albeit the kind of future dreamed up in the 1950s. Here are neoprene garments printed with retro-looking spacecraft and the star-scattered reaches of “outer space”. This contemporary fabric also forms the base for other looks, including shirts printed with a Hawaiian beach scene, and a dress smothered in pink and red lips, more ‘60s lipstick advertisement than Salvador Dali, as is fitting within the retro-future vibe of this story.</p>
<p>The last model laps the runway and then disappears as the music fades out. Cue a tinkling tune, as if someone has just wound up a music box. But instead of a twirling plastic ballerina, we see movement above the runway as two machines on the rig begin firing white confetti into the air. </p>
<p>It flutters down, a spectacular drift of white flakes, as the opening chords of a version of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSFLZ-MzIhM&amp;feature=kp">Rainbow Connection</a>, the theme song of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079588/">The Muppet Movie</a> (1979), begins playing. Out flow the models, each in their single look from the show, a walking rainbow themselves of pastel hues, gangly limbs, and spackles of glitter. The white confetti falls silently for the entire finale, the models disappearing backstage as the lilting female voice croons about “the lovers, the dreamers and me.” The designer, Alice McCall, takes a brief, shy bow, and it is over. </p>
<p>The street-style photographers immediately rush out of the venue to resume their posts out the front of Carriageworks to snap any passing show-goers whose outfits have caught their eye, while others flood onto the snowy runway to pose for photographs in front of the static set piece. I imagine the models backstage are already quickly changing into their own clothes before rushing to the backstage of their next show to have their hair and make-up done all over again.</p>
<p>As for me, I have tutorials to prepare for and writing to do. Back to real life. But not before I kick my feet through the fallen confetti on my way out.</p>
<p><strong>Further MBFWA reading:</strong> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/setting-the-fashionable-scene-25366">Setting the fashionable scene</a> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/strateas-carlucci-at-mbfwa-2014-25370">Strateas Carlucci at MBFWA</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gail-sorronda-at-mbfwa-2014-25383">Gail Sorronda at MBFWA</a> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/maticevski-at-mbfwa-2014-25395">Maticevski at MBFWA 2014</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25484/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
This week Rosie Findlay is writing her column from the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia (MBFWA) describing in detail the experience of the live event. The invite to this show that I received in the…Rosie Findlay, Teaching Fellow and PhD Candidate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/253952014-04-09T08:08:48Z2014-04-09T08:08:48ZMaticevski at MBFWA 2014<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45953/original/62bw88bm-1397026939.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">LKV</span> </figcaption></figure><p><em>This week Rosie Findlay is writing her column from the <a href="http://australia.mbfashionweek.com/">Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia (MBFWA)</a> describing in detail the experience of the live event.</em></p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45969/original/cr48r5cv-1397029847.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip">
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<span class="caption">Florals meet mesh in yesterday’s sensuous Maticevski show.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Susie Lau/ Style Bubble</span></span>
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<p>“He is a real lover/ of making up the past/ and feeling up his girl/ like he’s never felt a figure before”. These lyrics opened the Maticevski show yesterday, Adele’s warm voice singing her song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q_z2WkSKTc">Daydreamer</a> as a vibrant orange glow lit up the entrance to the empty runway. Flame lights contained within the doorway, framed by the cool white wall that conceals backstage from front of house; a soulful contralto singing quietly, feelingfully, about a lover and “his girl”- these notes contained the heart of the show we were about to see.</p>
<p>The sign that a show is about to begin (or end), a blackout, was absent here. Instead, a remix of Miley Cyrus’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1tzURKYFNs">Adore You</a> started to play as the first model appeared. The first thing I noticed was her glare: her gaze fixed and fierce on the photographers she strode towards them down the runway. </p>
<p>There were actually <em>three</em> runways that ran parallel to each other, each running down the middle of the room and connected across the top and bottom into a square. The models would walk down the centre, turn to their left and walk up to the back, before striding across the back before turning down the third runway, before walking back up the central runway to exit. This meant that an exiting model would cross paths with another on her initial walk, flashes of floral, full white skirts and nipped waists briefly intersecting, then gone.</p>
<p>The entire runway was covered by a graphic black and white print of orchids, a contrast to the white back wall and white benches the delighted audience sat on. So we watched as the collection walked past us on these models with severe eyes, eyes that belied their dishevelled bed-hair and sexy clothes.</p>
<p>Yes, they were definitely sexy: the collection very much fit within the story of the Maticevski woman - elegant and classically feminine - but spoken in a new language. The collection was styled into three distinct but intersecting stories: the first was feminine and soft, hues of blush pink, pale grey and white cut in lightweight, supple neoprene skirts, tops and high-waisted trousers nipped in with belts. Hems skimmed the knee or mid-shin here, and sleeves left wrists, sometimes full arms, bare, the pale colours of the clothes livened by the contrast with warm skin and juxtaposed by the thick resin collars and bangles created for the show by <a href="http://www.dinosaurdesigns.com/">Dinosaur Designs</a>. These were the looks walked out under crooning lyrics like “when you say you love me/ know I love you more.”</p>
<p>The music shifted when the second looks started coming out- still walked fast, still with the same fierce, cool-girl gaze, but sportier here. Here was the look that launched a thousand Instagram posts: model Nicole Pollard holding her thick, white floorlength skirt up over her black high heels like a sporty Cinderella striding out of the ball (this Maticevski woman was too cool to flee anywhere).</p>
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<span class="caption">Nicole Pollard walking the Maticevski runway.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Maticevski and Golightly PR</span></span>
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<p>The skirt made me think of trailing blankets, briefly reminding me of the just-rolled-out-of-bed feel of <a href="http://www.style.com/fashionshows/complete/F2005RTW-VIKROLF">Viktor and Rolf’s Autumn/Winter 2005</a>. Yet here was the warmth of connotation - of blankets against skin - without the literal realisation; a contemporary variation on the intimate theme because of the skirt’s clean lines and the grey motorcycle jacket paired with it. </p>
<p>This story was walked under a soundtrack of scuba breathing over low, thrumming beats, which shifted into opera sung in a minor key. If a look came down the runway that was particularly spectacular, the noise of shutters going off in the pit would immediately amplify. In fact, I was standing at the end of the runway right by the pit, craning to see as the model walked down the middle of this packed-out room. I knew if the shutter-clicking intensified that there was something pretty special coming our way. The sound was like rain falling harder on a tin roof, urgent, unstopping.</p>
<p>The third story, still within the sensuous feel of the entire collection, introduced graphic prints and hot tangerine orange. Here, models wore full skirts in a floral pattern reminiscent of the black and white orchids underfoot, white resin collars popping at their necks. This was the story with subdued low peplums, fine black mesh tops paired with mesh layered over neoprene in a swingy skirt, and an outfit of navel-baring top and fitted trousers in an orange as vivid and bright as blood. </p>
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<span class="caption">The final look at Maticevski.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Maticevski and Golightly PR</span></span>
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<p>Michael Jackson sang slow as the last look came out. The model was wearing a rosy-orange opera jacket and a shin-skimming embroidered orange and white dress. As she walked back up the right arm of the runway, I noticed that her jacket was cut low at the back, exposing the nape of her neck in the manner of a geisha in traditional kimono. There was a vulnerability to it that belied her heavily decorated dress, her swinging walk. She walked the full runway alone, and then disappeared backstage.</p>
<p>Lights still up, here they all came for the finale… with something in their mouths. It took me a moment to figure out that they were single orchid blooms. The audience was clapping hard, with genuine enthusiasm, unceasing as every single model filed out and around the runway. As they came, the orchids got progressively bigger, the first girl’s small bloom growing in size through each girl before morphing into a sprig that obscured the faces of the last few models, a sort of organic mask. It had a touch of the surreal about it, not to mention the famous, sensationally sensuous floral paintings of American artist <a href="https://www.google.com.au/search?q=georgia+o%27keeffe&amp;espv=210&amp;es_sm=91&amp;source=lnms&amp;tbm=isch&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=ff1EU7elCIfjkgXugYGIBg&amp;ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&amp;biw=1721&amp;bih=915">Georgia O'Keefe</a>. </p>
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<span class="caption">The last, biggest orchid wreath “worn” in the finale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Susie Lau/ Style Bubble</span></span>
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<p>Everything about the show spoke of a sensuous intimacy. As it went on, this mood became clearer and clearer still: the romance of the Adele and Miley Cyrus lyrics, their voices, and the floral runway in conversation with the supple neoprene, the collection’s soft colours, the models’ slim limbs, dishevelled hair and flashes of exposed navels, necks, all culminating in the boldness of the orchids in their mouths: all gave rise to a message of feminine sensuality, revealed under the warm, bright lights of The Theatre. </p>
<p>The applause erupted as Toni Maticevski came out, beaming, for his bow. I had guessed from the rapturous atmosphere in the room that there were many loyal fans in attendance, confirmed as the house lights went up, and I saw them stand, their Maticevski dresses falling back in repose, from the famous to the smiling strangers. I looked at Instagram as I walked out of the room and all I saw were orchids.</p>
<p><strong>Further MBFWA reading:</strong> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/setting-the-fashionable-scene-25366">Setting the fashionable scene</a> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/strateas-carlucci-at-mbfwa-2014-25370">Strateas Carlucci at MBFWA</a> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gail-sorronda-at-mbfwa-2014-25383">Gail Sorronda at MBFWA</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25395/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
This week Rosie Findlay is writing her column from the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia (MBFWA) describing in detail the experience of the live event. “He is a real lover/ of making up the past/ and…Rosie Findlay, Teaching Fellow and PhD Candidate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/253832014-04-08T04:42:56Z2014-04-08T04:42:56ZGail Sorronda at MBFWA 2014<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45839/original/t6bjvrnf-1396931204.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gail Sarronda</span> </figcaption></figure><p><em>This week Rosie Findlay is writing her column from the <a href="http://australia.mbfashionweek.com/">Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia (MBFWA)</a> describing in detail the experience of the live event.</em></p>
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<span class="caption">Model Nicole Pollard in one of the final looks at last night’s Gail Sorronda show at MBFWA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image courtesy of Gail Sorronda and Park Avenue PR</span></span>
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<p>Let me start by saying that I’ve had embodied responses to fashion shows before. Moments indelibly inscribed in my memory, like the phalanx of ethereal girls floating down the runway in every shade of white in Sydney designer Marnie Skillings’ show finale in 2007 (seriously. Sophie Ward led them out. Beautiful.) Or the infectious joy filling the room at Desert Designs only a few hours earlier yesterday, a collective excitement to see so many Indigenous Australian models on the catwalk, the stately counterpoint to the focused, skillful dancing of the young Indigenous dancers that opened the show. </p>
<p>But also let me say that I’ve never felt like I did at Australian designer Gail Sorronda’s show last night. I was trying to put my finger on it on the bus home, trying to find a language to explain it. I don’t know if I have yet, if I can, but I’ll certainly try.</p>
<p>So it began: a queue outside The Theatre, the venue on the far right side of Carriageworks, and dusk had fallen dark around our shoulders. There were less people around now, not so many lingering in The Hub or outside, most already seated inside The Theatre or heading off to dinner. </p>
<p>It was packed. What space wasn’t filled by seated guests was filled in by those standing, by volunteers, front of house managers in headsets, the photographers in the pit. The “house lights” were UV lights, bathing everything in an electric violet wash, and the music was low and electronic. The room was arranged into banks of white benches stacked five deep in tiers facing the runway. In a quick glance around, I noticed people seemed to have changed into “night-time fashion week” ensembles – I saw a white fur stole draped around one woman’s shoulders, black cocktail dresses, and a blogger in the front row sporting a magnificent pink sequinned minidress with shoulder-dusting sparkling earrings. I was perched on a step between two rows parallel to the end of the runway – it was that or stand with my nose half an inch from the back of the people standing in front of me!</p>
<p>Blackout.</p>
<p>And the music starts, a romantic ballad, as three ballet dancers – one male and two female – emerge from the entrance to the runway. They dance at the mouth, there, in blush-coloured leotards almost the same shade as their fair skin, moving slowly, dreamlike, with long extension. </p>
<p>I can only catch glimpses through the spaces between the heads of the people in front of me, of an extended forearm gracefully reaching through the soft air. The curve of a woman’s body as she is lifted and held, curved around gently against the body of her partner. Concentrating faces dip and weave in and out of sight, and I catch a glimpse of the light projection casting a pattern like silver raindrops against the walls surrounding the entrance also casting scattered light across the bare chest of the male dancer. </p>
<p>I can’t see if the leotards have been designed by Sorronda, but I can feel the romance, the controlled grace, the almost-forgetting of their dancing. </p>
<p>Blackout.</p>
<p>Music change – music sets the beat in fashion shows, the rhythm the models walk to, the auditory mood that fills the room, and this is no exception. There is a drum beat, bells, a plucked guitar: the feel is almost Spanish but just shy of any overt connection. Likewise, the collection has touches of the passion and romance of traditional Spanish dress, but at a remove, like the Basque dress as reinterpreted through the dresses of Cristobal Balenciaga, yet not derivative.</p>
<p>Here I reach for a language for what I saw: tulle and organza folded into crisp yet diaphanous shapes. Feminine lines of bell-shaped sleeves, short hems, fabric folded back against the line of the body in an open white tulle coat, or suggesting the warmth of skin under semi-sheer layers. Red and black followed by blushy, peachy garments, followed by crisp whites, worn with stacked platform sandals. In fact, it was the accessories that weighed the models down, as if it were up to the thick-soled shoes and their sculptural crowns to keep them floating forward down the runway and not up into thin air.</p>
<p>Some of the crowns reminded me of Christ’s crown of thorns, twisted and black and savage as they were, whereas others were like helixes, concentric circles of white that sat up around the models’ heads like haloes. Yet these crowns in concert with everything else effected a more general spiritual feeling, not earthy but oceanic, for the inspiration of the collection (as the brochure on the seats explained) was the fairytale of “The Little Mermaid” as told by Disney. Fluid were the walks of the models, their peaceful expressions. Their hair was down and slicked against the backs of their necks, a wet look that did little to disrupt their composed grace. They moved through the clear light with the dreamlike quality of underwater movement, perhaps a wink to the mermaids that inspired the collection.</p>
<p>The overall effect – dreamlike, light but balanced by touches of menace, romantic, feminine but not girly – left me brimming, full. It was beautiful, moving, otherworldly. The fact that I felt like this while sitting on a wooden step, craning to see the models and madly scribbling half-formed phrases like “everything has a breath of air in it” is only a testament to the power of the live event. As for the clothes themselves, those sculptural, clean, soft and sharp clothes – wow. </p>
<p>Blackout.</p>
<p><strong>Further MBFWA reading:</strong> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/setting-the-fashionable-scene-25366">Setting the fashionable scene</a> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/strateas-carlucci-at-mbfwa-2014-25370">Strateas Carlucci at MBFWA</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25383/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
This week Rosie Findlay is writing her column from the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia (MBFWA) describing in detail the experience of the live event. Let me start by saying that I’ve had embodied…Rosie Findlay, Teaching Fellow and PhD Candidate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/253702014-04-08T01:01:35Z2014-04-08T01:01:35ZStrateas Carlucci at MBFWA 2014<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45812/original/cvb6jrfk-1396918257.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">AAP Image Jennifer Polixenni Brankin</span> </figcaption></figure><p><em>This week Rosie Findlay is writing her column from the <a href="http://australia.mbfashionweek.com/">Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia (MBFWA)</a> describing in detail the experience of the live event.</em></p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/45812/original/cvb6jrfk-1396918257.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip">
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<span class="caption">A close up of one of the looks from yesterday’s Strateas Carlucci show.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/ Jennifer Polixenni Brankin/AAP</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The interior of The Runway is black. Black padded benches in eight tiered banks facing a long, black runway with a black lighting rig suspended above us like a dinosaur skeleton in a museum, all enclosed by black walls.</p>
<p>Each place on the benches is designated by a brochure printed with the name of the show - “Frac/ture”- over a greyscale abstract photograph. The music playing overhead - a female voice singing over a winding piano and slow electronic beat - is interrupted by a polite voiceover: “The show is about to begin. Please turn off your phone and thank you for attending Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia.” I hear a wet shh sound and look to the runway to see two volunteers peeling back the black plastic that has concealed the bright, white runway from view. </p>
<p>The cool house lights go down. Blackout.</p>
<p>Music. A humming chorus, low and vibrant, like a chant, a low call. I can feel the beat through my feet. The blank walls surrounding the rectangular entrance to the runway are suffused with light projections of similar images to that printed on the show brochure. Shades of abstract grey, black, white in close-ups of linear forms, of non-organic shapes. The projections are segmented into eight horizontal panels that shift and slowly morph as gradually as a snake shedding its skin.</p>
<p>And through the doorway they come. The models, male and female, each the mirror image of the one who came before and the one who will follow them out into the light. The hair of each woman is pulled into a sleek, high ponytail, the end blunt against her back, her make-up clean and minimal. The male models, too, are fresh-faced, hair neat and combed to the side.</p>
<p>The clothes are a flow of wintry neutrals: the first tone we see is white, followed by shades of soft biscuit, black and greys. The cuts are long: lean vests layered over straight short skirts over long pants, all white. An oversized, nobbly, biscuitty jumper with a rollneck, thigh-grazing hem and long skinny sleeves. A sharp-shouldered single-breasted black blazer over long black pants, punctuated here by a solid silver “Bone” cuff by Elsa Peretti for Tiffany and Co., or there by a pair of polished dark leather brogues.</p>
<p>The music flows into a female voice singing in a language I guess is Nordic (Bjork?), and the combined effect with the warm shapes of the clothing, the layers, the colour palette is one of bright winter. The crisp air, the glance of light against snow, the shadows that fall early. The overall effect of the collection is surprisingly lightweight: I see fluid fabrics melting over one another, the length of lean model limbs moving easily in slim, soft sleeves. They’re not weighed down, and they walk with straight backs, soft arms, and calm expressions. The effect is mostly smooth and effortless, ruffled only briefly by the male model leading his walk with his forehead, which lends his movement a forward urgency, or the young girl model, ever so slightly unsteady on her black stilettos.</p>
<p>And constantly, from the end of the catwalk, the sound of shutters clicking like cicada wings in the photographer’s pit. Glancing over, I see the photographers themselves, each wrapped motionless around their camera, creating a wall of reflective lenses that, from where I sit, look as big as their faces.</p>
<p>As for us, the audience, we sit still but for the turn of our heads one way, taking in the next look as it walks down the runway, and back, to catch the detail in the back as it glides back. </p>
<p>Blackout. And then here they all come, a single file parade of models in their final looks, uniformly tall, slim, and solemn. We applaud as the first couple of girls walk out, then sit in silence as they do a lap of the runway and then disappear backstage. The two designers, Peter Strateas and Mario-Luca Carlucci, walk across the entrance for their “bow”, smiling and waving shyly as we warmly applaud them. Then they’re gone from sight and it’s all over.</p>
<p><br>
<strong>Further MBFWA reading:</strong> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/setting-the-fashionable-scene-25366">Setting the fashionable scene</a> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/gail-sorronda-at-mbfwa-2014-25383">Gail Sorronda at MBFWA</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25370/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
This week Rosie Findlay is writing her column from the Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Australia (MBFWA) describing in detail the experience of the live event. The interior of The Runway is black. Black padded…Rosie Findlay, Teaching Fellow and PhD Candidate, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.